Welcome!

In a world of so many great photographers and writers, I am venturing into some unknown territories, leaving comfort zones, finally very willing to practice the art of seeing. By maintaining the practice of posting daily photos, I hope to continue learning about the possibilities that I trust are out there for the taking.

So Ray and I stayed at the Marriott last night. Now I’m at borders for an hour. I turned on my computer and couldn’t get wireless internet at Borders. Hmmmm. Funny I couldn’t get internet at the Marriott last night. When my computer asked me if I wanted to repair the problem while at Borders, I found my wireless radio hadn’t been turned on. So, no wonder I wasn’t getting internet last night. I wonder how the radio got turned off. It’s always something. Glad it’s not my new computer.

Went for a hike up killer hill in Tarzana this morning with Craig, Ray and Alex. Oh it felt great to be back at my old playground, the Santa Monica Mtns. I’m still not over my cold but I enjoyed getting the exercise. Had nice talks with both Craig and Alex separately. I love it when someone wants to come hiking with me. I miss hiking Killer hill with Tina and Cindy like we regularly did before Ray and I moved.

While at PG last night, we think Ray’s car was broken into. The driver side door handle had some paint chipped from where someone attempted prying open the door. Today when I went to look for my small evening handbag camera I couldn’t find it. Ray couldn’t find his overnight bag either. I think the thieves were kids because two packs of gum and a bag of fire Jolly Rancher candies is missing too. We still aren’t sure anyone actually got into the car as both our memories aren’t great and Ray might have forgotten his overnight bag at home. I’d decided not to put the small camera in my evening bag last night when I got out of the car and remember throwing the camera back in the car. Maybe when I opened the door after the meeting the camera fell out. And lastly, maybe we finished off the gum and candies! Anyway, this is still a mystery to us that we are both missing things and there definitely is damage to the driver door.

In a half hour I’ll meet someone at El Rancho to go through the Book. Then at 5pm I meet two other ladies to read more of Chapter 7. Tonight is Lena’s 13th Birthday. I’ll see Lena and other ladies for dinner at 6pm, then the meeting, and then home and back to the desert.

I’m feeling better today finally. I had to get out for a walk and Ray was up for it. I hadn’t been outside for two days except briefly when I stepped outside to watch Ray and his golfing buddies play their 3rd shots onto the 15th green around 11am. This is the best time of the year down here in the desert. I’d guess the temperature to be around 80, most snow birds haven’t arrived in town yet and it’s just balmy and quiet. Very relaxing…..Why I don’t go outside more, I don’t know. It was a heavenly 45 minute walk we had around Mission Hills Country Club.

I snapped off this shot during our stroll. Holding the Canon Powershot 650 steady was impossible but I like shadows and I wanted to remember this relaxing walk with Ray.

Tomorrow Ray and I drive in to the SFV. We’ll be staying over in the Marriott and returning home after our Thursday night meeting. Tomorrow night Jim H. is speaking at PG and a number of us are going to hear him.

This weekend and maybe early Thursday sometime, I want to spend time outside with my larger camera and tripod. I haven’t taken one practice photo since I left Half Moon Bay. I don’t want to stop the discipline of looking for and shooting photos.

While I’ve been sick I’ve not wasted this precious stay home time. I have been reading and learning some of the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 software I recently purchased. I’m in heaven trying to learn this way cool data base file management software. To be able to rate and keyword photos for easy retrieval once you pose a request of criteria will save me so much time trying to find photos. I only wish Cupcake were here with me. He learns so fast and I learn from him as he explains what he is learning. It takes me so long to understand something. But when I see someone working with the program and they watch and help me work with the program, I learn best. Where are you Cupcake? I think I need to find someone local who will come and teach me weekly. Wouldn’t that be great?

Another learning curve starts as Thursday Scottie will bring me my newly ordered Adobe Photoshop CS4 software that was just released this week. My Photoshop 7.0.1 is so old, old meaning behind in all the newest technology.

Last week Ray and I were on the go non stop. Wednesday we drove in to the San Fernando Valley where I spoke. We spent the night over and Thursday, also in the SFV, we attended our home group meeting. Friday we attended the Just the Black Print Meeting Ray and I started here in Rancho Mirage. Then after the meeting we had dinner with some friends who driven out to the meeting. And Saturday we again drove in to the SFV to attend a friend’s 20th birthday. All last week I felt sick but now I’m home really sick with a full blown cold.

This week’s schedule was on the heels of having been away 8 days up in Half Moon Bay attending a loosely structured class with 11 other students, Norm and our teacher, Carol Leigh. Our assignment was to photograph the character and feel of HMB. By the way, I had an incredible time setting up my tripod and camera at 5am to shoot the setting full moon and later rising sun. The Beach Hotel where I stayed had a balcony that suited my early morning shooting needs without having to go out into the scary dark of the morning on the beach or pier.

I don’t know how many photos I shot. Tons. We were told to select 20 photos for submission to our teacher. She’ll take 3 photos from each students’ submissions and put together a book. Thank goodness my computer waited to crash until I was home. (I am now the very proud and happy owner of a new T500 Lenovo IBM, a 20″ Mac external monitor, Lightroom 2.1 and am waiting for Adobe Photoshop CS4 which is supposed to arrive this week. Lots of learning curves.)

Here are some of the photos I submitted:

Out on the docks, looking at Pillar Point Harbor Pier.Silver pumkin outside the Mill Rose Inn B&B.An attempt at photographing color at a local pumpkin farm.Looking back at the Beach Hotel where I stayed.So many students photographed great shots at the many pumpkin farms. We had great sunny days, but had hoped for clouds which make for better photos. This was a another attempt at a pumpkin festival shot.This was one of the first shots I took before sunrise. I’d never shot with so little light before. Pillar Point Harbor.We all called this Norm’s Pier. I don’t know the real name of it. It’s located at the northern end of the Half Moon Bay Beach. This was the first of two times I visited this pier for sunset shots.Early morning shot looking north from my balcony at the Beach Hotel.Reflections of dock pilings at Pillar Pt. Harbor.A wider view of the dock.An uninteresting boat that caught my eye because of the light on it.First full moon rise I’ve ever shot. I was so excited and focused on the moon, I neglected to notice and avoid a big ugly dock feature in the lower right hand corner of many of the other photos.First time I ever shot a setting moon. It’s hard to not blow out the moon and retain detail.A point at the northern most beach of HMB.A view of the house at the end of ‘Norm’s’ Pier.Another moon shot over a hotel along the shore in HMB.Pigeon Point Lighthouse. I arrived and started shooting a half hour before sunrise. As with all these shots, I used a tripod.

I turned around and shot the rising sun. Can you see two of my classmates?A shot of the lights of the northern most land and naval equipment.Ocean beach bluffs photographed on my return from Pigeon Point Lighthouse around 8:30am.Shot seconds before the sun rose.I was asked by my doctor if I’d bring in two framed photos from this class to hang in his office. Which two do you think would be best together?

After telling my son Lane last night that my computer had crashed, he said that he knew something was up that I hadn’t been posting anything. I feel so lost without my computer. The Lenovo IBM was over 4 years old. I”ve sensed the IBM was close to dying during the last few months. I was waiting to buy a new computer AND new photography software, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Adobe Lightroom 2, in January. I’m trying not to spend too much money right now. Yes, I’m bummed with the crash but thrilled with the new equipment I’ll have Friday. Right now I’m on an 8 year old Mac. This keyboard is missing a cover on the “u” and the keyboard is so overly sensitive the cursor rarely stays on the word on typing. BUT, I still am able to access the internet.

Hopefully by the weekend I will begin posting again. I’m waiting for the critiques on my 5th online photo assignment – Red, White and Blue, and 10 Santa Fe workshop photos I presented for review.

While up here in Half Moon Bay I went online and noticed I’d received the critique on Office Art. I did not like this assignment. I have trouble with setting shots up.

I’ll be leaving Half Moon Bay where I’ve been for the last 5 days to head over to my sponsor’s house in Concord, CA to attend her Baby Meeting on the Concepts. Tomorrow I return to the LA area and will be at my Home Group Meeting Thursday night and Ray! Can’t wait. I’ve had a great time up here photographing Half Moon Bay but it’s time to return home to Ray and my regular routine. I’ll be posting some of my favorites I shot this last week in a day or two.

1. CRITIQUE: Linda JeffersOffice ArtCALLING CARDSGood idea for a photo — lots of photosof YOU! I like how you have them allfanned out, and how you’ve created arepeating pattern, not only of yourself,but with all the words and letters andthe individual cards. You’ve effectivelypushed our eyes around the frame,checking everything out. Well done. Ialso like your limited depth of field.There’s just one “Gottago” that’s infocus while the rest blur out. It’s a verygood technique — shallow depth offield so that everything’s soft except for one little thing, or one little “slice” of a shot.Your exposure, focus, composition — all are good.The only thing I’m wondering about is the bit ofbackground showing in the lower left corner. Is it adistraction? Your picture’s all about repeatingpatterns, repeating words, repeating forms. To havesomething completely different and unrelated lowerleft could be a distraction. But, frankly, it’s not a bigone. I just needed SOMETHING to talk about! 🙂

2. BODIE TYPEWRITERThis is interesting — both you AND Bruce Lloydsubmitted pictures of old typewriters. (I’mwondering if we’ve got any “feet on old typewriters”waiting in the wings! There have been more feet inthis class than I’ve ever seen!) Look at the differencebetween your old clunker and Bruce’s old clunker.His had boldness because of the red/black/silvercolor combination. Yours has boldness because ofthe strong stairstep forms you captured.Let me talk about that a minute. Look at the threetriangles you put together in this shot. You’ve got one up top with the typebars, another formed by the “wedge” of keys, and then a third formed in the lower leftcorner. Everywhere we have triangles we have diagonal lines (and perhaps everywhere we have diagonal lines we have triangles).Wherever we have diagonal lines, we have movement. And you’ve got a lot of movement here.I like the dust and weathered metal — they create an ambience that really adds to the concept ofyour photo. Naturally, I wish it were sharper, but Iunderstand the problems we have when shootingthrough glass, especially at Bodie. So all in all, I thinkyou did really well with this shot — especially with thecomposition.

3. TRASH CANYou had a lot of decisions to make when setting up thisshot. What do you put it on? What do you use as abackground? How do you keep the reflections from themetal non-distracting (i.e., how do you keep YOU out ofthe reflection?). And then, how do you crop this? Doyou include the entire trash can? Or do you (as you didhere) decide to clip off one side of it? Set-ups can bedifficult, and this is a good example.Overall, I think you did a good job with it, especiallywith the exposure and with the reflections. There’snothing being reflected that catches our eye and makesus dwell on the reflection rather than the shape of thetrash can. And your background is clean and simple.You put the trash can on a glass table that creates amirror-like reflection, which I think is very effective, avery interesting touch.You clipped off part of the right side. Does that looklike an artistic decision, or does it seem like an accident?To me, it seems kind of accidental. Usually, when wechop off something, we need to make it a really radicalchop (like in half) or we need to chop off something onthe other side. If we don’t, we run the risk of appearingcareless with our photography.So then the question is, if we’re going to amputate, howfar should we go? Or would it have been better not tohave amputated at all? I think perhaps if you’d been ableto include the entire trash can in the shot, it would havebeen better. We could have seen the form better andwe’d be less uncomfortable about part of it beingchopped off. Maybe a wadded up piece of paper at thebottom somewhere would be a good touch to give a sense of size/perspective.Thanks for posting these. We’re just three hours away from getting together here in Half Moon Bay — I should have done this in person!Carol Leigh

Kenny, Katie and Rick on our way up the Bump and Grind at 5:30am.Rick and Katie.Sunset taken on the I-5 near all the smelly cow lots.I have been trying not to listen to the news. I don’t turn on my car radio. I walk out of the room when Ray has the news on TV. I avoid reading the newspaper. It’s the only way I seem to somewhat quiet my head and my heart.

I am on the road, headed to Half Moon Bay to meet Carol Leigh and 12 other photography students for a 3.5 day shoot for a book Carol is publishing depicting Half Moon Bay. Last night I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express 2.5 hours from Half Moon Bay. This morning I ate their complimentary breakfast in front of the large screen, high volume TV. I’m back in my room, with my friend, my computer, trying to numb out from the news of other nightmare day in the stock market.

So…..here are a couple of photos I took yesterday. The first two I took on yesterday’s morning Bump and Grind hike with 3 very special people. The last photo I snapped while driving on the I -5 last night.

A new teleconference machine’s short cord kept us from having our meeting in the living room. So we all squeezed into Milly’s dining room. Five out of town ladies were on the phone. What a powerful meeting. Powerful women!